RCM announces support of People's Vote campaign

By RCM on 14 June 2018 RCM People's Vote Campaign Brexit

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has today (Thursday 14th June) announced its support of the People’s Vote campaign on Brexit.

The People's Vote campaign is seeking to ensure that the government's Brexit deal is put before the country in a public vote so that the people of the UK can make their own decision on the final terms of Brexit that may impact their lives.

The RCM believes the economic impact of Brexit will hit the country’s ability to fund improvements in healthcare and to train and recruit not only more midwives, but more frontline NHS staff.

Commenting, Gill Walton General Secretary and Chief Executive of the RCM said; “The RCM has today come out in favour of supporting the People’s Vote campaign. We believe it’s important that the people should get the last word on the final Brexit deal.

“The RCM is concerned of the impact Brexit is already having on midwife numbers. Over the past year, just 33 midwives arrived in the UK from elsewhere in Europe and we used to welcome hundreds every year to work in our national health service.

“This is a big problem because the NHS is short of thousands of midwives. Our most recent estimate is that, in England, we need the equivalent of around another 3,500 full-time midwives. Brexit has already choked off that supply, and the barriers that will be thrown up by actually leaving and imposing immigration controls will only make matters worse. This puts more pressure on all midwives here and inevitably impacts on the quality of care that all women receive.

“This was not what was promised two years ago during the referendum campaign, and that just illustrates how the Brexit we are looking at now is not the Brexit that was promised then.

“Continued investment in our maternity services is needed if we are to continue to delivering safe high quality care, and investment is needed to train and recruit midwives and maternity support workers to do that. To make that easier to achieve we need an economy that is growing faster, not one that is taking a hit because barriers to trade are being put up between ourselves and our largest market, the EU.

“Much has happened since the vote two years ago, much that may affect our NHS and RCM members and that is why the RCM believes its only fair that we get the chance to decide what Brexit promised will be delivered. After all, at the end of the day someone has to accept or reject the deal. We believe that that should be everyone in a people’s vote, not a few hundred politicians in Westminster.”

 

For more information on the People’s Vote campaign, please visit https://www.peoples-vote.uk/.

 

To contact the RCM Media Relations Team call 020 7312 3456 or email media@rcm.org.uk.